Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Daninger very weak, unfortunately

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

sol- Introduced to a handsome young man during a stay in Italy, an insecure widowed US actress fights back her knowledge that the gentleman is just a gigolo in this Tennessee Williams adaptation starring Vivien Leigh in her penultimate big screen performance. Suffering from real life marital problems at the time, Leigh provides a performance with an air of vulnerability that rings true, but even better is Lotte Lenya of 'From Russia with Love' fame, cast here as the conniving 'countess' who introduces Leigh to her young suitor. Rambling on about the virtues of love and companionship, Lenya seems like a benevolent force at first, but as the film progresses and we see just how hell-bent she is on gaining financially from her matchmaking, she eventually seems almost as sinister as her better known Bond villainess. Promising as all this might sound though, the film is let down by never really igniting romantic sparks between Leigh and Warren Beatty as the young gigolo. Leigh never seems less than delusional to believe that he really loves her and Beatty only ever seems opportunistic. Beatty's awkward performance does not help matters though. He certainly looks the part, but with a faltering Italian accent, he never feels real whenever he opens his mouth. The main sell point of the film though is surely the dark and deliciously ambiguous ending. One exits the film really feeling like Leigh has suffered a personal blow and the uncertainty of her eventual fate is pitch perfect as she herself is unsure what the future holds for her by the end of the movie.

Dunham16 Tennesee Williams' first novel has more current interest focus depth and meaning than do the more sensational novels he later wrote on more sordid subjects many turned into famous motion pictures. THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE delves into a world of lonely people first seeking comfort any price not expecting their bubble to inevitably burst once they move to an expatriate gathering region of a world Capitol City. When it does they often make a hasty a mid life crisis choice to pursue joie de vivre then when this goes bust as it will eventually prefer companionship at whatever cost. Quintero's only major screen effort casts three distinguished Hollywood personalities in the leads whose much admired acting chops are truly given a fine workout here. Vivien Leigh is the comfortable woman whose life is about to go bust once she finds herself alone by surprise with no life and no friends in an expatriate's hangout district of what could be any world class capitol city in any year but is in fact post world war two Rome. Warren Beatty is the gay Roman gigolo hired by madam Lotte Lenya to pretend be an eligible straight suitor sincerely interested in showing Vivian a good time. Brilliantly paced, edited and blocked it holds your interest throughout.

bkoganbing The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone is based on a novella by Tennessee Williams and I'm sure it was Tennessee who saw to it that Vivien Leigh was cast in the title role. After all Vivien had won an Oscar for playing that other Tennessee Williams sex starved female, Blanche Dubois.But Karen Stone is a woman very much like Vivien Leigh was in real life. Karen is an actress who's refused to grow old gracefully, when we meet her she's just been trashed by the London critics for a very bad portrayal of Rosamund in As You Like It. She's 50 trying to play a young girl in her teens. Better she should have played Queen Gertrude in a revival of Hamlet.Anyway she and her husband decide to take a long holiday in Rome, but as the plane is landing her husband has a heart attack and dies. He's left her well fixed and after a suitable period of mourning Mrs. Stone is ready for a little action in her life.This is Tennessee Williams so we're talking sex here. Vivien maybe too old to play Rosalind, but she's not too old to enjoy what Rosalind enjoys. And Lotte Lenya who makes a living procuring young men for her clients is willing to supply. Warren Beatty is what Vivien thinks she wants. Warren is the only real weakness in The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone. He does pout an awful lot in the role and his accent is phony. But Vivien who was going through mid life crisis for decades before she died in 1967 was perfect casting. I'm not sure how much of it is acting and how much she's just playing herself. The woman had a lot of emotional and physical problems and as her husband Laurence Olivier frankly admitted, she was a nymphomaniac in real life. Lotte Lenya got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the Countess. However this was the year of West Side Story and Rita Moreno beat her in that category.This was one of the frankest discussions about sex ever put on film up to that time. In fact though no gay sex is discussed, right at the beginning you see a couple of men meeting for a tryst and you can spot a few obviously gay couples strolling throughout Rome. The Code was definitely coming down.One of the big pluses The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone has is that it was shot completely in The Eternal City. The movie industry loved Rome at that time with Roman Holiday, Three Coins In The Fountain, The Seven Hills Of Rome and now The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone all showing Rome to its best advantage. The other three films were a lot more upbeat than this one was.Stage director Jose Quintero did a great job with his cast in his one and only big screen production. The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone was done with Helen Mirren in Vivien Leigh's part several years ago. You might want to see both to compare.

Spikeopath " And when the time comes when nobody desires me for myself:I would rather not be desired at all"As with all Tenessee Williams adaptations it's the characters that keep the viewer interested, always intriguing and seemingly fractured with personal demons. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is no different, and much like the other adaptations the actors on show here come up trumps to realise the heavy dialogue driven story. This film centres on an ageing actress whose husband dies and leaves her to face her fears whilst holidaying in beautiful Rome. Here she is pimped a male companion for company and the film then fleshes out the respective characters to a craftily ambiguous ending. But it's the journey that each characters psyche takes that lifts the film above average.The back story to the film is a belter and knowing this back story helped me to enjoy the film much more than perhaps I would have. Vivien Leigh is here as the scared and alone ageing actress who falls in love with a much younger man, in real life Leigh's husband Sir Laurence Olivier had just left her for a younger woman. You can't help believing that the wonderfully tragic performance she gives here is really from the heart. The character of Karen Stone is actually based on Tenessee Williams himself, all the fears and stresses of the title character are how he felt has he penned this novella. Warren Beatty is a fine choice as the gigolo of the piece, he looks the part and actually looks like an Italian man, but I really can't vouch for his accent because during scenes where he gets angry he actually sounds more Soviet! That aside tho, he gives a well solid performance that didn't deserve the negative reviews that it got on release. Lotte Lenya {who later on would thrill me as the villainess Rosa Kleb in From Russia With Love} is brilliant here, in fact she almost steals the film as high society pimp, Contessa, all devilish charm with money signs sparkling in her eyes.Great writing, fine acting, and poignant to the last with a cracking and worth waiting for ending. 7/10.